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Google, the World, and the World Wide Web, Weblogged


Google Chrome Update With Form Auto-Completion And MoreYesterday

The latest preview version of Google Chrome features a couple of additions, Google announced, including:

When I tried this version, it messed with my Windows task bar visibility, and also distorted this blog’s layout, so for serious usage I’d have to go back to an older version.

If you want to try out the preview, you need to:

Is Dell Buying Text Links?Yesterday

Is computer seller Dell buying text links ads, those non-nofollowed paid links which also happen to go against the Google webmaster guidelines? For instance, the following bit can be seen on the PageRank 6 OpenSourceTemplates.org:

The respective HTML for this portion (I added a line break and omitted some lines):

<h5>Sponsorship Friends</h5> ... <a href="http://www.dell.com/business/servers"> business servers</a> ...

Similar non-nofollowed links with the keyword "server" or related phrasings can be seen in the ad sections of other sites, including ILoveTypography.com, MovableStyle.com, Internet101.org and Oggix.com (at least these always look like ad sections, though they're often undisclosed under headings like "Unrelated", "Featured" or "Recommended"). The Yahoo site explorer lists more, as Yv, who pointed this out in the forum, explains.

The other ad links surrounding the Dell link point to a variety of things, often unrelated to the site showing the ad, like "Alcohol Rehab Programs", "Web Hosting", "New Cars", "Flash Memory", "Free Games", "Online Sweepstakes", "Wholesale Cell Phones" and so on. Here's another example, this one from PictoGame.com:

Which Google Products Make Money?January 7

Below overview checks which Google products directly make money for Google in terms of being paid for by the user, or having ads or affiliate links. Indirect effects on revenues (as well as some other things) are disregarded for this purpose, but not because the effects are necessarily neglible.* The table is just an estimate – if you see ommissions or misses please comment and I’ll update the table.

 paid/ member?runs AdWords?affiliate links?notesGoogle Web Searchx✔xImagine the extra cash Google could make by adding their affiliate ID to links pointing to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other miscellaneous shopping sites. If you enter Romeo & Juliet into Google and then buy the book, Google would get their share of the sale. This would come at the expense of neutrality and karma, and it might make new enemies because the commission money would be taken away from Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.Google Image Searchx✔xAds currently seem to be limited to the US.Google Blog Searchxxx Google Newsxxx Google AdWords✔xxYou can set your own budget for ad campaigns.Google AdSensex✔xGoogle AdSense pays webmasters a commission from ad clicks. It serves from ad campaigns launched in the AdWords systems, though the AdSense site itself is ad-free.Google mobile servicesx✔xThere’s the Google Mobile Ads program part of AdWords, YouTube mobile tested ads, and there’s AdSense for Mobile.F
And the Winner of the Google Docs Easter Egg Hunt Is ...January 7

This had me laughing. Google had a Spreadsheets Easter Egg hunt contest going on, offering prizes to the first 15 people who figure out what function Google hid in the program. Now look what Google wrote about the contest results:

<<Holidays are over and we are wrapping up our holiday Easter Egg contest.

We might have been overly optimistic hoping for no less than 15 winners – after all, holidays are traditionally spent with family and friends, not searching Google Spreadsheets for mysterious Easter Egg function. We did get 1 winner though. Tony Ruscoe correctly identified expertly hidden function as GoogleHoliday().>>

If you don’t know why it made me laugh, Tony is this blog’s co-editor!

To try the function for yourself, open a Google Docs spreadsheet, enter =GoogleHoliday() into a cell, and hit return. A little surprise text will display.

PS: As soon as Tony is contacted so he knows what Google wants to send out, we’ll look how we may pass on the prizes to one or some of you!

[Thanks Jérôme Flipo and Achille!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: And the Winner of the Google Docs Easter Egg ... | Comments]


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Turning 3D SketchUp Models Into RealityJanuary 7

Sweet Onion Creations is a company dealing with 3D printing. In the video, they show you how they load a model located in Google Earth (and perhaps available in the Google 3D Warehouse) into Google SketchUp, check it for integrity, and then print it. They describe the printing as follows:

<<The process starts with a very fine white powder that resembles cornstarch in consistency. The toxicity is so low that it is almost food-grade in quality. On the computer, a house or hillside is sliced up digitally and made into an outline or “pancake.” From here it is fed into the machine and each outline of that pancake traced out using a small dispenser on an “x” and “y” axis. A sugar and water binder is applied to temporarily glue each layer together.

It’s commonly referred to as an “additive process”. The best part is it generates the least waste (97% is recycled back through) which means less cost for our clients and easier on the environment.

However, the success of the architecture model hinges on a perfect “water tight” Computer Aided Design (CAD) file called a Stereolithography or STL for short. Preparing this file is typically the most tedious and difficult task of the entire process of going from 2D drawings on the computer to the 3D model in the hand. If not carefully produced, a corrupt CAD file causes the model to “blow up” in the machine and th